


One of Two Choices

by stargategeek



Series: His Beautiful Ghost [3]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Aberama’s a fighter, Badass Aberama, Eventual Smut, F/M, Hospital, Hurt/Comfort, I needed to write this to feel ok, Love, Revenge, Season Five Fix-it, spoilers for the end of season five
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 20:44:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21398389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargategeek/pseuds/stargategeek
Summary: One of two choices, he thought, lying there.He could try to get up, try to rejoin the others, try to retreat - but he was injured, and badly, however not dead.The other choice was to remain still, and wait.At least, he thought, I could take the bastard out with me.But dying would leave one loose thread, alone and without him in the world. Her. Polly.
Relationships: Aberama Gold/Polly Gray
Series: His Beautiful Ghost [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1479566
Comments: 9
Kudos: 49





	One of Two Choices

He lied in a deathly stillness, mapping out in his mind all the bright warm spots of pain, blossoming on his body like burning stars. 

The man had got him several times, and the jabs had been brutal - but the man not as skilled. Aberama Gold was adept with a knife - in his own hands he would’ve been dead by now. This job was hasty and imperfect. Still hurt as all fuck. 

One of two choices, he thought, lying there. Eyes wide open to the rafters. He could try to get up, try to rejoin the others, try to retreat - but he was injured, and badly, however not dead. 

The other choice was to remain still, and wait. 

At least, he thought, I could take the bastard out with me. He would die with a measure of peace after that - knowing his beloved Bonnie was avenged. But dying would leave one loose thread, alone and without him in the world. Her. _Polly._

“Eh, we’ve got one here!” a voice, thick and Scottish pinged in his periphery like a warning bell when a rabbit is lured into the trap.

“What should we do with this one, Jimmy?”

The heavy thud of boots that have haunted his nightmares since that fateful day - the smell of gas and ash, and foul leather that he can still smell, still feel pressed against the open wound in his chest where his son used to be. 

_Just come closer, that’s all I need, I want to feel the life slowly drain out of you. _

He felt the toe of one boot nudge his shoulder.

“Fuckin’ gypsy scum...burn ‘im.”

The blade so effortlessly slipped from his sleeve into his palm. 

_I’m sorry Polly._

Then the boots walked away, and with it his revenge. Bonnie’s revenge; his sweet baby boy who had done nothing wrong enough in this world to deserve being hung up on a cross and crucified. Hot pinpricks formed in the corner of his eyes. 

_Gypsy queen_, he prayed, knowing no other deity to reach out to. _Help me. Reach out your healer’s hands and give me strength. Strength for my boy. Strength to come home to you, if only to find eternal peace in your arms._

A hand grasped the arm not holding the blade, grunting with the dead weight and stepping over him into the perfect position.

_Thank you, Polly Gray._

Glassy eyes resurrected back into crystal clear ferocity. His hand tightened around the offending Billy Boy’s forearm, tugging him sharply forward as he swung the blade around and pierced him at his occipital joint. The man’s eyes widened in surprise, staring open-mouthed into the face of his killer and he didn’t even know he was dead yet. 

“Don’t you know a dead man when you see one?”

The blade lifted and stabbed again. Lifted and stabbed again. 

That is how you fucking stab a man to death.

He threw the Billy Boy off him to the blood-stained stage floor. 

“The fuck?”

Another Billy Boy entered the room. Another fucker who took his son from him - who tried to take him from Polly. He didn’t much care which one did it, or whose hand had wielded the blade; they were all one hand, one entity. And he would put an end to them in the only way he knew how.

The man swung his leg to kick; Aberama swung his blade out and embedded it into the soft unprotected tendon of his ankle. He screamed. Another man ran in.

_Keep em coming, Billy Boys. I have fury enough for all of you._

The seeping slits in his body sang in tandem as he rolled to his feet, receiving a hit to the face that knocked out his gold tipped molar on to the floor. The heat blooming on his face barely registered; he was more concerned with the warmth of Billy Boy blood dripping into the cracks of his fingers as he brought his blade up through the Adam’s apple into the roof of the bastard’s mouth. _Two down one to go._

The Billy Boy with the injured leg came up behind Aberama and kicked out his knee sending him back down to the floor. The man’s ankle was bleeding profusely from the wound and his face glistened with hot snotty tears. Each kick hurt his assailant just as much as it hurt him; he could not keep the smile from creeping up on his face. This Billy Boy’s death would be most satisfying. 

The man delivered a string of sharp blows to the already weeping wounds. His body went limp and the man hoisted him up to sitting by his bloodied suit jacket, punching him, one, two, three times hard across the nose. 

Aberama Gold lips parted in a gruesome, bloody smile.

“Fucker!” the man cried hysterically, shaking him. “I’ll kill you! You cut my fucking leg!”

Aberama kept smiling.

“Fuck you! Why are you smiling? You’re dead! Why are you smiling? Stop fucking-“

The man’s cries cut off unexpectedly, his brows furrowing as though horribly confused. He looked down between their bodies to find Aberama’s blade stuck deep into the warm centre of his gut. _For Bonnie._

“Never forget,” he said, whispered lowly to the Billy Boy’s ear. “Never forget whose hand holds the blade.”

The blade dragged up as though the man were made of butter and the warm entrails fell out of their casing and into Aberama’s lap. He shoved the poor dead sod away and staggered to his feet.

Beyond the red curtain were the blinding red lights of the auditorium. Thrown into chaos. The audience in their fancy dress who had come for the demonstration brought up against a horde of angry Jews and men who had first hand knowledge of the affect of fascism willing to prevent it with fists and teeth; and in the centre of it all, it’s deranged ringmaster, Jimmy McCavern.

Aberama hobbled where he stood. A woman shrieked at his no doubt monstrous appearance, causing Jimmy to turn from where he stood in the throng, and to smile.

His hand tightened its grip on the knife, clutched it to his heart.

_One more, Gypsy Queen, that’s all I ask, one more. Give me strength for just one more kill,_ he prayed. 

~~~~

Polly couldn’t stop looking at it. How it sat on her finger - another unfulfilled promise, another happiness taken away from her.

Her eyes blurred with unshed tears. What was the point of crying, she’d known hadn’t she? She could feel it in the air that this whole plan was going to go tits up, and that it was going to take someone she loved with it. But why him? _Why him?_

She reached for the whiskey and downed another sip. 

“Go home, Ada,” her voice was wracked when she spoke. She hated it, hated the weakness of it.

Her niece looked up from the deep chair she was nearly falling asleep in.

“No,” she said simply.

“You’ve got your son and that baby to think of, so fuck off,” Polly sighed, resigned. “I want to be alone.“

She wanted to be alone the moment Arthur had burst in here, blubbering, incoherent. _Aberama...Mosley...fucker...fucking dead! I’m sorry Poll, I’m so sorry, I left him. I just left him there!_

It took an ounce of cocaine just to calm him down but by then she had already figured out what he had been trying to say. Aberama was dead, Tommy had fucked up and now the man she loved was dead.

She looked down at the ring again.

“I’ll never forgive him for this,” she said to the empty air.

Ada tilted her chin up.

“Tommy?”

“All of them.”

The pain in her heart began a slow steady burn deep inside her stomach. 

“If that fucker McCavern is still alive, I will have his head on a pike.”

“For Aberama?”

“For Bonnie. It’s what he would’ve wanted.”

Ada sat up and reached for her cigarettes.

“I didn’t realize you and Mr. Gold were....” she stopped herself.

“Were what?” Polly snapped, eyes tear laden and sharp with anger and heartbreak.

“Just...so in love.”

A tear fell from Polly’s cheek. 

“We were, weren’t we?” she laughs. A sad laugh that is more of a sob. 

She covers her mouth with her hand and pushes the unwarranted emotion back down. She needed to drown herself in alcohol and go numb for a few days. Then perhaps she would take off the ring and move on to another faceless, nameless body with a nice cock that she could pretend was her beloved Aberama. 

“You should go, Ada. Please go.”

“I don’t want to leave you like this.”

“Please. I need to be alone. I need to find his caravan and wrap myself in all his clothes and bay to the moon, and curse the names of Oswald Mosley and Jimmy McCavern so that even their grandchildren’s grandchildren will never know a measure of peace in this world.”

Ada nodded, defeated. “Ok,” and got up.

She collected her coat from the back of the divan and leant over to kiss the side of Polly’s head.

“You run out of whiskey you call me, ok?”

Polly gave a half-hearted chuckle. 

“There is not enough whiskey in the world to drown my sorrows in.”

Ada pressed her lips together and left not saying another word.

Polly poured herself another whiskey. Listening for the front door to close and shut so that she could finally be alone, and crawl into bed, and cling to the pillow that still smelt of him from the one and only night he had slept in her home, in her arms. 

_Why did I let him go?_

She drank down the full glass in three steady gulps and reached for the bottle once more -

“Polly!” Ada cried.

Instinct had her reaching for her single shot pistol.

“Polly!” Ada shrieked again.

Polly ran.

Ada stood at the front door, visibly shaking. Hand pointing to a form on the stairs - a heavy breathing mound crumpled against the railing of her stoop. 

_It can’t be._ Her heart pounded. She ran past Ada.

“Call the Doctor!” Polly cried.

Ada ran back inside the house to find the telephone.

Polly approached the huddled mass as though approaching a wounded beast. Praying, _please...who ever is listening, please let it be him._

The face was beyond recognizable, swollen and stained red and purple and black. Hair sticky with coagulated blood - the jacket drenched with it. How much was his own she couldn’t tell, though he was bleeding. Strings of red tinged saliva fell from his mouth and dripped down his chin.

A hand flopped out of the dark mass towards her, covered in bloodstained rings - his rings.

She took the hand, feeling it’s faint warmth.

“Is it you?” she managed to say through her choked throat. 

His mouth moved, and breathed out a faint whisper, she had to lean in to hear.

“Hello, Polly Gray.”

Tears fell from her eyes.

“Ada get the fucking car!”

**Author's Note:**

> There. I fixed it. Screw the end of season five, I have feels!!


End file.
